Foreign Learning

While Rabbit is trying to heal, there are times when he needs to be able to stretch for the comfort of his leg and back, and he is choosing to do that in VR.  He can feel like he's running and jumping around like a normal person.  Evenings in particular are difficult for him, as his back is strained from going about the day.  This means that most of the night I would be alone while at his place.

At the same time, I needed to be on top of my sleep schedule due to Squishy starting school soon.  I was making sure to go to bed by a certain time, and had an alarm for far earlier than Rabbit was waking up.  In some ways, this was nice, because I was able to get a lot of my work done in this time, without having to enforce that time alone.  It however meant that outside of going to appointments, or running errands together, we had little more than mealtimes sharing space, and with both of us being home, and it being my last long stint there for a while, I was feeling a little lonely.

I sat on the couch one day, figuring that I may as well work since I was left all alone, and realized that I didn't like feeling so alone in the house while everyone was home.  I knew that he needed to stretch, and that I didn't want to feel like I was asking for too much.  He finally came out of the music room to watch an episode of something, and saw me in tears.  We held each other for a moment, and went outside.

And then, we talked.  We just talked, like humans.  We shared our anxieties, knowing we were safe, but still expecting things to unfold the way they used to in our pasts.  Together, we asked for changes during this time period.  Spoke about our needs in an open way, and we came up with plans to make everyone happy.  We were alright with things being more fluid while we worked out the right balance, because we knew it would take work.

He spoke about how he was waiting for the other half of the conversation.  Being so used to having things thrown at him both figuratively and literally.  Having everything made his fault, and turned into a screaming match.  Meanwhile, we sat there receptive to each other, and genuinely wanting to help things be better.  It felt foreign in many ways, expecting heightened conflict like it would be more comfortable than the peace we navigated things in.

We're learning a new normal.  A space where we can make things better, and put aside everything that we had learned for survival previously.  It takes time, and it takes the occasional reminder that we are now in a space where we do really love each other, and we do truly want to spend time and be together.  The kind of thing that shouldn't be foreign, but it is.